


i may have died, but your loving raised me

by The_Eclectic_Bookworm



Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, F/M, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, Season/Series 02, Sexual Assault
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-24
Updated: 2020-04-24
Packaged: 2021-03-01 23:28:55
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 18,354
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23825341
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/The_Eclectic_Bookworm/pseuds/The_Eclectic_Bookworm
Summary: About two weeks after Ms. Calendar’s resignation, Buffy began to get the sense that there was something Giles wasn’t telling her.
Relationships: Jenny Calendar/Rupert Giles
Comments: 38
Kudos: 35





	1. buffy

**Author's Note:**

> the trigger tags are VERY relevant, so please read responsibly.
> 
> i held off on posting this fic for a while because the ending was eluding me a little, and THEN i deleted it because i decided it needed a whole other chapter! whoops. let's hope it's REALLY done this time.
> 
> all four chapters are going up today, because this is more of a loosely divided oneshot than a multi-chapter thing.

About two weeks after Ms. Calendar’s resignation, Buffy began to get the sense that there was something Giles wasn’t telling her. It started small—him missing a patrol here and there, then looking bedraggled and sleepy the day after as though he’d been up all night doing something _else._ But then it started to manifest itself in things like him turning the library upside down to find three extremely specific books on locator spells, and then shutting down the library for three days straight to repeatedly _cast_ the locator spells, and then locking himself in his office for a whole day after _that_ while absolutely refusing to talk to anyone.

It was kind of a weird reaction to a breakup, Buffy thought, but she really didn’t have a whole bunch of time anymore to deal with anyone’s weird post-breakup feelings. Hers included. Once Angelus was neutralized, then she could go back to crying and eating ice cream and telling everyone who would listen how she _just didn’t understand how everything had gone so wrong._ Obviously Angel hadn’t been her _soulmate,_ but so what? They’d been happy. They’d been making it work.

Whatever. The point wasn’t Angel. The point was that Giles needed to get his head screwed on right, because Buffy had never needed her Watcher more than she did at the moment. Steeling herself for whatever Giles’s brand of crazy was today, Buffy strode into the library—and stopped.

Giles was sitting at the table in the center of the library, shirtsleeves rolled up to the elbow as he methodically bandaged one of his arms. The other arm was wrapped similarly—tight and precise—but what _really_ got Buffy’s attention was how badly Giles’s hands were shaking. She’d never seen him like this.

“Giles?” she said.

Giles jumped. Like, literally _jumped_ out of his chair. Taking two steps back, he said in a strange, flat voice, “Buffy, I’d appreciate you warning me before—”

“This is a _public school library,”_ Buffy reminded him. “You’re probably lucky it wasn’t Snyder. Giles, _what_ is going on?”

“It’s not your concern.”

“I think it _is_ my concern if you’re a total mess literally every second of every day!” Buffy countered as gently as she could. “Look, I—I just need you to get your head in the game again, okay? Just because Angelus has been lying low—”

“He hasn’t,” said Giles.

Buffy blinked. “What?”

“He hasn’t been lying low,” said Giles acidly, and swept past Buffy, striding into his office to slam the door behind him.

Okay. _That_ wasn’t what Buffy had been expecting. _“Giles!”_ she said with exasperation, following his path to the office and tugging at the door. Giles had locked it. “Shouldn’t _I_ be the one who’s all angsty and secretive? We’re _all_ dealing with Angelus—”

“Buffy, just _leave,”_ said Giles without opening the door.

“What is going _on?”_ Buffy demanded. “The last time you shut me out like this was Eyghon—”

Giles yanked the door open, eyes flashing. “To be _very_ clear,” he said, “none of this is _any_ of your business.”

“It is my business if you’re _making_ it my business, which you _are,_ because your business is taking care of my business!” Buffy blinked, replaying the sentence in her head. “Wow. How many times did I say _business?”_

“Just go,” said Giles. “All right?”

And that was when Buffy noticed a piece of information which she would later label as Clue Number One: Giles’s fingertips were stained with ink. _That_ seemed pretty unusual, Buffy thought, and was about to ask Giles about it when he shut the door in her face. _Again._

“Are you _SERIOUS?”_ Buffy demanded of the closed door. “How am _I_ suddenly the adult here? I am _seventeen,_ Giles, I am legally _still a child—”_

 _“LEAVE,”_ said Giles from behind the door.

With a furious huff, Buffy turned on her heel. At least with Eyghon, Giles hadn’t been behaving like a complete and total _dick._

* * *

“Ink?” Xander repeated. “Like—like what kind of ink? Printer ink? Paper ink? Soulmate ink?”

“Giles doesn’t have a soulmate,” said Buffy. “He told me.”

“Well, you said he covered his arms,” Willow pointed out. “Maybe he’s getting messages from his soulmate. _Oh no.”_ She went very pale and set down her carrot sticks.

“Oh no?” Buffy repeated. Willow shook her head and pressed a hand to her mouth. “Oh no? Willow, what _oh no?”_

“Nothing!” Willow squeaked.

“That is _so_ not a _nothing_ kind of face.”

“Only—” Willow removed her hand from her mouth, looking a mixture of terrified and repentant. “You said he told you that Angelus hasn’t been lying low, right? Well, what if _Angelus_ is his soulmate?”

Buffy blinked, then let out a weak, tired laugh. “That’s really ridiculous, Willow,” she said. “I’d sooner believe that Angelus _had_ his soulmate than—”

And then an equally horrible possibility occurred to the three of them at the exact same time.

* * *

Clue Number Two: the only thing that Ms. Calendar had left to confirm her resignation was a neatly written note. They found out this information from Principal Snyder’s secretary before Principal Snyder came out and gave them both detention for asking too many questions, at which point Willow decided that alternative measures needed to be taken. “We need to see that note,” she informed Buffy, quiet and steely. “I _knew_ there was something weird about Ms. Calendar not answering my emails—”

“You’ve been emailing Ms. Calendar?” said Xander with surprise.

“She resigned _really_ abruptly,” said Willow simply. “I thought it was just because she was hurt about the breakup with Giles, but she left right before a test and she has this _extremely_ specific grading system, _and_ Snyder put _me_ in charge of her class, so—”

“Okay, I get it,” said Buffy uneasily. “But do we even know where that note _is?”_

“I _think_ I might,” said Willow. She looked a little nervous.

“Wait, really?” Xander grinned. “Way to go, Willow.”

“Don’t _way to go_ me just yet,” said Willow unsteadily. “The only reason that a note like that would still exist is if someone held onto it. And if _anyone_ was going to hold onto Ms. Calendar’s last goodbye—”

Buffy saw where this was going. “Oh, _no,”_ she groaned. “How are we supposed to get a note like that away from Giles? He probably sleeps with it under his _pillow_ or something.”

“Yeah, that’s kind of a problem,” Xander agreed. “Is there any way we can—I don’t know, distract him?”

“Have either of you _seen_ Giles lately?” Buffy countered. “He’s totally un-distractible. We’d be lucky if we manage to get him out of his office for longer than twenty seconds.”

But Willow had her Resolve Face on, which almost always meant that something semi-scary and very smart was about to be suggested. “Someone’s going to have to ask him about Ms. Calendar,” she said.

_“What?”_

“Look, whether or not we’re right about this—and I don’t think we have enough information to decide yet—it’s the only thing that’ll distract Giles long enough for us to figure out where he put that note!” Willow fiddled with the ends of her sweater sleeves. “I know we don’t know how we feel about Ms. Calendar leaving the way she did, but we _have_ to figure out what’s been going on with Giles. And if _this_ is what he’s been hiding from us—”

“He said he didn’t have a soulmate,” Buffy pointed out.

“Maybe he didn’t _know_ he had a soulmate,” Willow countered. “Ms. Calendar told me that she _never_ wrote on her arms when she was little, and she doesn’t want to start now.”

Buffy filed that away as Clue Number Three. “Okay,” she acquiesced. “Fine. I can ask Giles about Ms. Calendar. Willow, you can try and find the note in his office.”

“What about me?” asked Xander.

“Um.” Buffy considered. “Xander, maybe check his house? I think he’d keep the note from Ms. Calendar pretty close to him, but it never hurts to make sure.”

“Roger that, Captain,” Xander agreed. “Is that what we’re gonna do right now?”

“No time like the present.” Buffy hesitated, then added, “And there’s always the chance that we’re wrong, right? It might be some weird apocalypse thing that Giles isn’t telling us about.”

 _Clue Number One,_ said the voice in the back of her brain. _Ink on Giles’s fingers and bandages on his arms._

“It might be,” Willow agreed, but in that way she did when she was trying to make Buffy feel better. “You should probably go ahead and talk to Giles.”

* * *

Giles was sitting at the table again when Buffy showed up in the library, poring over a new and completely different book on locator spells. When she knocked on the table, he jumped—straight out of his seat, just like before—then straightened up and glared at her. “Buffy, _really—”_

“Giles, about Ms. Calendar,” said Buffy.

Something in Giles’s eyes…shattered. Buffy wasn’t sure how else to describe it. The steely Watcher gaze gave way to something hurt and broken—but only for a moment. Then the icy cold professionalism returned with a vengeance. “What do you want?” he said, his voice short and clipped.

Buffy honestly wasn’t sure. “Do you think she’s okay?” she asked carefully, testing the waters.

“Why would you care?”

The bluntness of the question took Buffy off guard. “Snyder’s secretary mentioned that she only left a note—”

“No,” said Giles. “She did not.”

Buffy blinked. “What?”

“She did not.” Giles fished out a crumpled bit of paper from his pocket, shoving it across the table to Buffy. _“This,”_ he said, “is not Jenny’s handwriting. Strikingly similar to hers, yes, but it is quite easy to see the dissimilarities if you know where to look.”

“Giles—”

“Buffy, I don’t wish to involve you in Jenny’s affairs.”

“If it’s impacting you _this much,_ I think I _should_ be involved!” Buffy burst out. “Why are you shutting _all of us_ out? We _need_ you!”

Giles’s eyes flashed. “I am _quite_ aware that you need me, Buffy,” he said coldly. “Over and over, I have been made aware that you need me. Over and over, I have chosen to help you, to stand by you, to make sure that your needs are the ones that are met. I chose you one too many times. This time, I will not make that mistake.” Without waiting for Buffy’s response, he moved past her—or tried to. Buffy caught his arm. _“Buffy—”_

“Well, maybe _you_ need _us,”_ said Buffy fiercely. “Ever think of that one, smart guy?”

The impassive expression on Giles’s face flickered. “I—”

“And maybe Ms. Calendar needs us too,” said Buffy. _“All_ of us.”

Willow chose this moment to open the door, moving quietly and carefully in Buffy’s peripheral vision. When she saw the crumpled-up piece of paper on the table, her eyes widened, and she froze where she was standing.

“Willow, it’s fine,” said Buffy. “It’s fine. He showed me the note and he said it’s not Ms. Calendar’s.”

“What—” Giles’s eyes landed on Willow. “Have you two been _conspiring_ to—”

“We’re _working together,”_ said Buffy. Her voice caught. “Because we’re _worried_ about you, Giles. You won’t tell us what’s wrong, you won’t tell us how we can help, you won’t tell us _anything._ You don’t have to tell us _everything,_ but you could at least tell us _something!”_ She was crying a little bit by the end of her sentence; she felt Willow’s hand on her shoulder. It helped, but only a little bit. “What does it take for you to—”

Giles swallowed. His eyes were wet. Quietly, and sounding a little bit more like Giles, he said, “Buffy, I made a choice to turn my back on Jenny for your sake, and Angelus took advantage of that. Until she is safe again, I don’t want to make _any_ choices that don’t put Jenny first.”

That should sting more than it did, Buffy thought, but it…kind of didn’t. It was hard to want Giles to put her first when Ms. Calendar was clearly in some kind of serious trouble. “Okay,” she said. “I’m fine with that.” At Giles’s skeptical look, she huffed. “I _am!_ Or at least I _will_ be, if you _tell me what’s going on.”_

Giles considered this, then said, “Get Xander. Cordelia and Oz too, if you’d like them involved. I only want to explain this once.”

Buffy felt a _rush_ of relief.

* * *

By the time everyone was sitting around the table, Giles had started to look a little bit more like the weird, cold, semi-crazy guy who had locked himself in his office multiple times over the course of the last week. He seemed to be doing his very best to pull himself together, though, and as he shifted from foot to foot in front of all of them, Buffy was weirdly reminded of all the guest speakers who had visited them in the auditorium. _Don’t do drugs, kids,_ she thought, and fought down the bizarre and deeply inappropriate impulse to burst into giggles. Now wasn’t the time for that.

“Right,” said Giles. “I feel that there is really only one way to explain things.” He hesitated, then rolled up his left sleeve, carefully unwrapping the bandages to reveal his bare arm.

Buffy’s stomach turned. Half-smeared, mocking messages in Angel’s neatly sloping cursive covered Giles’s arm like a thousand and one obscene tattoos, snaking up his forearm and disappearing under his sleeve.

* * *

_Your fault, Watcher. You don’t even want to know what’s been done to her_

_The messages still go through if she’s dead, you know. Ever done your research?_

_She’s a good fuck. I can see why—_

* * *

Buffy didn’t want to read any more of them after that.

“As you can see,” said Giles thinly, “I have been working myself to the bone attempting to figure out a way to get Jenny back.”

“How do you know it’s Ms. Calendar?” said Cordelia, her voice shaking. “I mean—no one _wants_ it to be Ms. Calendar, obviously, so—how do you know this isn’t just—”

Without a word, Giles slid the uncrumpled resignation note across the table. The handwriting matched the messages on his arm _exactly._

“And we don’t know where she is,” said Buffy, her voice shaking. “Or where Angel is. Have you tried—”

“Everything,” said Giles. His voice was hollow, his eyes empty. “Absolutely everything. Every contact, every demon informant, _everything._ The Council has refused to extend their help to me; they say that it is nothing short of irresponsibility to become romantically involved with a civilian, and that hopefully this will make me…” He trailed off. “Learn my lesson.”

“That’s _awful!”_ said Willow tearfully. “What about Ms. Calendar? How is that fair to _her?”_

“I expressed a similar sentiment,” said Giles. “They didn’t seem very interested in hearing it.”

Buffy felt sick.

“My only comfort,” said Giles unsteadily, “is that Angelus is lying about at least _one_ thing. Messages on soulmates are not able to be transferred if the soul is no longer within the body—which means that as long as I keep receiving these messages, Jenny is still alive.”

“Are you sure?” said Xander.

Giles nodded crisply. “Positive.”

“And are you still getting them?”

Giles’s face twisted a little. “Yes.”

Buffy squinted at Giles’s arm again, trying to make out any new writing—

“They’re not,” Giles swallowed, and had to try again. “They’re not in places visible w-when I’m fully dressed.”

Disjointed images flashed across Buffy’s mind, most of them inspired by the kind of things she’d read about when it came to Angelus. The kind of things he had done to women. The kind of things he’d almost definitely done to Ms. Calendar and _bragged about_ to Giles through their _soulmate connection._ “Is Ms. Calendar your soulmate?” Buffy asked timidly. “Like—are you sure this—maybe he’s just—”

“No, I’m quite sure,” said Giles. His voice broke in the middle. “I suspected for—for a little while before now. This only confirms it.”

“God, and in the _worst_ way possible,” said Cordelia shakily. No one said anything about the tactlessness of her statement; the sympathy in her eyes took all the bite out of it.

Oz, who was frowning intensely, tugged a crying Willow into his side. “Giles, if you don’t know how to find her, how _do_ we find her?”

“I haven’t the faintest idea,” said Giles. He sounded small and tired in the same way he had during the whole Eyghon mess, only a _thousand_ times worse. “If I knew—”

“If you knew, she’d already be out of there,” Buffy finished, sitting down heavily. “Have you tried—sending messages back?”

“I won’t give him the satisfaction,” said Giles thinly.

“So what, you’re just gonna _ignore_ him?”

It took Giles a moment to speak. Then he said, “Angelus is trying to put me out of commission. If he receives a thousand and one pleading messages from me, he has leverage. So long as I do not respond, he cannot make further threats or decisions—he is reduced to communicating via Jenny, which means that she must remain alive.”

“But how long till he gets tired of that?” persisted Buffy. “What happens if—”

“Do you think I don’t know that?” There was no real fire behind Giles’s words—only that same flat emptiness that spoke to complete and utter despair. “I have done _everything_ I can _possibly_ think of to get her back—”

“You haven’t.”

Giles flinched as though he’d been hit. Slowly, he turned to look at Cordelia. “What would _you_ have me do, then, Cordelia?” he said tiredly.

“Write her back,” said Cordelia, and flipped out her own wrist in emphasis. Xander’s sloppy algebra notes trailed up her forearm. “All of you are always talking about how Angelus has a _reason_ for everything, right? Well, there’s _gotta_ be a reason that he’s keeping her alive, and she probably knows what it is.”

“She’s likely under _constant_ supervision—”

“Thing is, Giles, you don’t _know_ that for certain,” Cordelia countered, a determined glint in her eyes. “And even if he _does_ see your messages, he’s been trying to get your attention, right? He won’t kill Ms. Calendar if he can still use her in a deal with you.”

Giles didn’t say anything. He sat down again, instead, staring down at the smudged writing on his forearm as though it held some kind of secret message.

Buffy wasn’t sure if she could bring herself to look at them again, so she directed her attention up towards Giles’s face instead—and caught a smudge of ink on his neck. Her stomach turned. “You should have _told_ us,” she burst out. Giles, startled, looked up, and Buffy found that tears were tumbling down her face. “You should have—Ms. Calendar’s _hurting_ and she’s been hurting for _weeks_ and you didn’t even _think_ of telling us?”

“It wasn’t your business,” said Giles crisply.

“Of _course_ it is!” Buffy sobbed out. “Whether or not I’m mad at her doesn’t _matter!_ No one should be going through what she’s going through right now, a-and I can’t believe you’d even _think_ that I’d—that I wouldn’t want to help her! Do you think _that_ little of me?”

“Buffy, it had _nothing_ to do with you.” Giles’s voice shook. “I simply couldn’t waste time. A single second spent _not_ working towards Jenny’s rescue is a second longer that she remains trapped with a _monster._ ”

“I don’t _care!”_ Buffy was crying in that ugly, frustrating way she had after Angel had gone evil. “I _don’t!_ You should have _told_ me! I’m the Vampire Slayer, I can _help—”_

“No one can help Jenny right now,” said Giles, in that bleak, empty way that made it sound like something inside him had snapped.

 _“Oh my god,”_ said Cordelia suddenly, sharp and furious. Pushing her chair back, she grabbed a pen from Willow, stalking over to Giles. Before anyone could stop her, she’d scrawled a messy, glittery message on the back of his left hand: _What the FUCK do you want, you big, dumb undead asshole? Leave Ms. Calendar alone!!!!!!!_

Giles yanked his hand back, face pale, and did his best to wipe away the ink. _“Don’t!”_

The damage, however, had still been done. Over the remnants of Cordelia’s words, black ink bloomed on Giles’s skin.

_Took you long enough, Watcher. I think you know what I want._

_“Do_ you know?” Buffy asked Giles.

“I’m sure I can’t pretend to guess,” said Giles weakly. Cordelia grabbed the pen again and proceeded to scribble at least seven impassioned and angry question marks before an irate Giles snatched the pen back. _“Really,_ Cordelia,” he said, sounding a little more like himself, and wrote in neat cursive on the back of his right hand: _For my own sake, please elaborate._

The black ink on Giles’s left hand smudged and vanished, leaving new words in its wake: _Your little secret project. Give it up and I’ll give her back—and don’t even think about trying to use it on me._

“My secret _what?”_ said a bewildered Giles.

“Now’s not the time to play coy, Giles,” said Xander, a tense laugh in his voice.

“I-I’m not!” Giles stared down at the writing on his hand with growing horror. “He clearly expects _something_ from me, but I don’t know wh-what I can possibly give him!” And then he _gasped,_ like someone had punched him, and tears sprung to his eyes.

Buffy followed his gaze down to the words; they’d been smudged and changed one last time, but the handwriting was _different_ now. Messier, and shaky in places that couldn’t be attributed to simply untidy handwriting, and print instead of cursive—

_Save me, Snobby._

* * *

Pretty much almost exactly after Giles had received Ms. Calendar’s message, he’d once again locked himself in his office. The concept of Ms. Calendar—proud, stubborn Ms. Calendar—reduced to the point of having to beg for help kind of made Buffy want to do the same thing, but if her Watcher was so thoroughly out of commission, she couldn’t afford to be too. “Okay,” she said unsteadily. “So we know—we know that Angelus wants some kind of _secret project,_ right? And we know that Giles doesn’t know what it is, _but_ Angelus thinks he’s involved and took Ms. Calendar as retaliation.”

“What kind of secret project would make Angelus pull something like _this,_ though?” pointed out Oz. “If he wanted Giles’s secret project _that_ bad, why didn’t he just go and get it himself?”

“Because it’s a threat to him,” Buffy responded immediately. “He made it clear that he doesn’t want us _using it on him.”_

“Which makes it something that’s worth a lot both to Angelus _and_ to us,” Willow added with a sniffle, “because Angelus took Ms. Calendar, a-and she’s—”

“Worth more than _anything_ to Giles,” Buffy finished. “I’m pretty sure he’d give himself up on a silver platter if he thought it would bring her home safe.” The thought made her feel a little nauseous. “So whatever it is, Angelus knows that it would take the concept of losing Ms. Calendar for Giles to even _consider_ giving it up to him.”

“Which means that it’s probably something we want, right?” said Xander.

Buffy and Willow shot him furious looks. “Don’t you even _suggest—”_ Willow began fiercely.

“Hey, I’m not suggesting _anything!”_ Xander shot back. “I’m only _saying_ that we should know what we’re giving Angelus before we send it his way! If there’s even a chance that there’s some kind of Angel-killing death ray, I’d say we take it and run, ‘cause Angel being dead means Ms. Calendar might have a chance to get _out_ of there.”

“We don’t know what kind of condition she’s in, Xander,” said Buffy grimly. “And Angelus isn’t our only worry. If Ms. Calendar’s his leverage, he’ll have her _surrounded_ by vamps. Going against what he wants right now isn’t a risk we can take until we know the situation better.”

“But we don’t know _anything_ about this secret project—”

“Yes, we do.”

Buffy and Willow jumped a little. Giles had come out of his office, a strange, semi-manic glint in his eyes. “Giles,” said Buffy a little uneasily. “How’s it going?”

“Jenny stopped calling me _Snobby_ after Moloch,” said Giles. “Very _specifically_ after Moloch. We had a conversation about it in the faculty meeting; she said she didn’t feel comfortable calling me a _snob_ when I’d been so openminded about the demon in the Internet.”

“…okay?” said Buffy warily. This sounded a little bit like crazy talk.

“And as for _save—_ she wouldn’t say _save me,_ she hates asking for help _._ She only uses _save_ if she’s talking about her computer,” Giles continued, as though this information meant anything to anyone and didn’t just sound like he was completely losing it over Ms. Calendar begging for his help. “It’s a message. She’s sending me—” He was shaking. “She’s sending me a message. It’s in code so she won’t—”

“Giles,” said Buffy, moving to steady him. Seeing him like this was somehow the worst part of all of it.

“No, Buffy, she—”

“It’s okay, Giles. We’ve got this.”

 _“No,_ you _don’t,_ not if you’re not _listening_ to me!” Giles snapped, jerking away from her hands. “Damn all of you, _don’t_ look at me like I’ve gone mad! I _know_ Jenny Calendar well enough to know that she was trying to _tell_ me something—”

“Giles, sh-she _was_ trying to tell you something.” Willow’s voice was wobbly and soft. “She wants you to help her. B-but you can’t help her if you’re—if you’re not okay enough to help her.” She sounded near tears. “You need to be okay enough to help her, Giles. _She_ needs you to be.”

That seemed to get through to Giles. He took a few staggering steps back to lean heavily against the wall. “I-I suppose you’re right,” he said weakly. “I—I shouldn’t—”

“No, Giles, it’s.” Buffy swallowed. “We’ll check the computer lab, okay? Maybe there’s something there that might help.”

“Buffy, don’t _humor_ me—”

“It won’t hurt,” said Buffy, and crossed the room to place a hand on Giles’s shoulder. “And worst-case scenario, we still might turn up something useful of Ms. Calendar’s, right? She was always working on weird theoretical witchy stuff. Maybe _she’s_ got a hidden locator spell that you missed.”

Giles almost smiled. “You are…a remarkable girl,” he said quietly. “I _am_ sorry I kept you out of this.”

Buffy shook her head. “You don’t need to apologize,” she said, and wanted to hug him more than ever. “This…is so messy and scary. If it was Angel—” She swallowed. “Well. It’s _been_ Angel before. I remember how I felt.”

At the mention of Angel, Giles’s ghost of a smile vanished.

“I’m sorry,” said Buffy again, her voice breaking. This whole mess felt like her fault. Without waiting for Giles’s reply, she hurried out of the library and into Ms. Calendar’s classroom.

The room was pristine and organized; Ms. Calendar’s cardigan was even hanging from the back of the teacher’s chair, as though she’d just stepped out for a coffee break or a smooching session with her boyfriend in the library. Suddenly and powerfully, Buffy _missed_ Ms. Calendar—her tilty-sweet smile, her sharp, laughing way of reprimanding students that made you feel abashed without feeling embarrassed, the way she could always distract Giles and abused that power _hugely._ And now Buffy’s boyfriend was keeping Ms. Calendar _prisoner_ in some weird dungeon, probably, and—god, Buffy couldn’t even let herself think the words for what Angelus had done to Ms. Calendar. As long as she didn’t think them, they weren’t real. That was how it worked, right?

“Found anything?” asked Willow from behind her.

“I’ve only just come in,” said Buffy, trying to laugh as she let Willow past her. “Maybe you’ll be better than me at finding…I don’t know. Something.”

“Well, nothing in here looks a whole lot like a vampire-killing weapon,” said Willow a little shakily, “but I’m gonna turn this place upside down anyway. Giles could be right about Ms. Calendar trying to send him a message, if we’re really lucky.”

“Oh yeah?”

Willow bent over the desk, peering at each item on it with an almost comical amount of scrutiny. “He’s right about her not saying things like _save me,_ though,” she said. “Checking her computer…I don’t think it could _hurt,_ could it? Oh!”

“Oh?” Buffy echoed.

Willow squinted at the tiny gap between Ms. Calendar’s desk and the wall. “No, I just thought I saw…” she mumbled, leaning awkwardly down to pry a floppy disk free. “Huh. That’s weird.”

“What’s so weird about a floppy disk in a computer science classroom?” said Buffy skeptically.

“Ms. Calendar _always_ labels her floppy disks,” said Willow, frowning down at the flat yellow diskette. “Why wouldn’t _this_ one have a label?”

Buffy shrugged. “Check it out and see? I’ll look through her desk.”

Hurrying over to one of the lab stations, Willow turned on a computer.

Buffy decided to focus in on Ms. Calendar’s desk. A framed photo of Ms. Calendar, a handful of witchy-looking people Buffy didn’t know, and—Buffy’s heart clenched—Giles, looking nervously, happily out of place with Ms. Calendar’s hand on his elbow. A crumpled-up Post-It reading _hey Jen, it’s Jen, PLEASE don’t forget to eat breakfast today._ A receipt from a gas station for a scary amount of candy bars. A little note, this time in Giles’s handwriting, tucked almost lovingly into the frame of another photo—

 _“Buffy!”_ Willow gasped from her position at the computer. “Buffy—oh my god, oh my _god!”_ She was almost sobbing. “I found it! I found it, I found it, we can—”

 _“What?”_ Buffy whirled.

“It’s—” Willow _was_ crying now, tears of bright, happy relief. “It can’t be _anything_ but this! It wasn’t _Giles’s_ secret project Angel was after, Buffy, it was _Ms. Calendar’s!_ I think he thinks it’s Giles’s but it’s _hers—”_

Buffy raced over to the computer, peering over Willow’s shoulder—and a horrible, leaden feeling settled in her stomach.

* * *

“What’s the hesitation?” said Xander savagely. “He’s got _Ms. Calendar,_ remember? Are all of you seriously going to tell me that giving Angel back his soul is going to do anything useful here?”

“Xander—” persisted Willow shakily.

“He _raped_ her,” Xander spat. “You didn’t see _that_ one on Giles’s arm, huh, Buffy? Your precious little boy toy pinned Ms. Calendar down and—”

Buffy saw it coming before anyone else did. Just as Giles lunged forward, she yanked him back with _all_ of her Slayer strength—and it was taking a lot more than she expected to continue to hold him back. “Xander, that’s _not_ what this is about,” she said firmly—or as firmly as she could when she felt like something big and heavy had set up shop in her chest. “What this is about is figuring out the best way to get Ms. Calendar out of wherever she is—”

“You saw what Angelus said,” Cordelia countered. “He said _don’t even think about trying to use it on me._ He knows what it is. What happens if we try to use it and he _kills_ Ms. Calendar before it takes effect?”

“That’s not a risk I’m willing to take,” said Buffy quietly.

“Exactly!” said Cordelia fiercely. “So you—” She faltered. “Wait. What?”

Buffy swallowed, eyes wet. “I don’t think Angel could live with himself after this,” she said. “I don’t want to put him through that. The best thing I can do in this situation is—”

“Give him back his soul.”

All eyes went to Giles. “…what?” said Buffy weakly.

“Buffy, Angel is a competent and capable fighter,” said Giles shortly. “If he can get a message to us via Jenny, he might be able to tell us where he is—and we might be able to help him get her out.”

“But he _said_ that we shouldn’t—”

“He won’t _know,”_ Giles shot back. “He doesn’t know a damn thing about magic. And quite frankly, I don’t trust Angelus not to renege on his deal and kill Jenny as soon as he has what he wants. This eliminates a potential threat—”

“Are you _serious?”_ Xander exploded. “You’re willing to let Ms. Calendar _die_ just to—”

Giles tried to yank himself free from Buffy’s grasp; it didn’t work. Furiously, he snarled, “Don’t you _dare_ stand there and accuse me of being anything _close_ to willing to let Jenny _die,_ Xander, not when you’re using her life as a fucking _chess piece_ in an attempt to fuel your vengeance-driven crusade—”

“Like it’s not justified?” Xander exploded. “Like he’s not a monster?”

“Don’t even _think_ of trying to take the moral high ground with me!” Giles shouted.

 _“STOP!”_ Buffy sobbed, and let go of Giles to cover her face with her hands. She expected to hear the sounds of a painful brawl, but when she finally managed to look up, she saw that all her friends were looking at her as though they expected her to have changed her mind. “Xander’s—Xander’s right, Giles,” she said. “We need—we can’t risk Ms. Calendar’s life like that. We have to play by his rules.”

Giles swallowed, shaking his head. “She’s suffered—unendingly, and for no just reason,” he said, almost sobbing himself. “In no possible world am I all right with giving up her hard-earned gift to Angel as a sacrifice to that—that _monster.”_

“We don’t have any other choice,” said Buffy quietly.

But Giles’s eyes glittered. “We have one.”

* * *

Angelus met Buffy on the hill by their old makeout cemetery. There was something particularly perverse about that. “Where’s the Watcher?” he asked coolly. “I’d think he’d be here to pick up his girl.”

“Giles isn’t in any condition to negotiate,” said Buffy, “and I’m pretty sure he’d just kill you on sight. We agreed it would be me.”

“Not trying any funny business, are you?” said Angelus, giving Buffy an easy, toothy grin that didn’t look like Angel at all. Something—everything—about this hurt too much to bear, because no matter _what_ happened, there was no way Buffy could even look at Angel the same way again. He wouldn’t be _Angel,_ anymore—not her soft, sweet, silly boyfriend who she had loved so much it had felt like rainbows exploding inside her sometimes. You couldn’t do something as horrible as what Angelus had done and come away with clean hands.

But then again, Angel had done much worse before, and for much longer. It just hadn’t felt real until it had been Ms. Calendar in place of one of his faceless, nameless victims.

“Nope,” said Buffy, popping the P, and handed him the printed copy of the ritual, as well as the Orb of Thesulah they’d found in Ms. Calendar’s desk drawer. “This is the only copy we have.”

Angelus kept smiling, big and smug, as he carefully folded and pocketed the ritual. Then he said, “You didn’t _really_ think this would work, did you, lover?”

The bottom dropped out of Buffy’s stomach. “What?”

Taking the Orb of Thesulah, Angelus threw it violently to the ground, smashing it into little bits of glass. He moved forward, quick and fluid, to grip Buffy’s face, pulling it close to his. “I think I _like_ having pretty little Ms. Calendar on retainer,” he whispered, game face on. “I think it means that you Scoobies are gonna think twice before going up against me—because who _knows_ what I might do to her if you don’t stay in line?”

“You—you can’t—” Buffy gasped. _This_ part wasn’t in the script.

“Oh, I think I can _and_ I will,” said Angelus, giving Buffy a fanged grin. “And I think I’m _really_ looking forward to spending some _quality time_ with your Watcher’s girlfriend tonight. I’m not the kind of guy who minds _sloppy seconds._ I mean—” He laughed. “They can’t all be sweet little virgin Buffy, can they?”

Buffy staggered back when he let go of her face, watching him go with a feeling of dizzy horror. This was part of the plan, she knew, but some part of her had been _so sure_ that he’d make good on his promise. Why had she been so sure? Why had she been so _fucking_ convinced—

“Buffy,” said Xander, stepping out from behind a nearby mausoleum. He moved towards her, placing a steadying hand on the small of her back. She leaned into him, shaking. “It doesn’t matter, remember?”

“I—” Buffy swallowed. “I know. But what if—what if it doesn’t work, a-and he’s still—and he’s still—”

“That’s why we’ve got Giles, remember?” said Xander grimly. “He’s on Angelus’s tail.”

That didn’t comfort Buffy all that much.

* * *

What Buffy had told Angel was true: they’d only printed one copy. They didn’t really need to print out a ritual more than once when they had it ready-made on the computer—and Buffy knew enough about her boyfriend to know that Angelus didn’t know a _single_ thing about backup disks and translation algorithms. Hand Angel a printout and he would ask you, very seriously, if you’d made it on a typewriter.

“I’m glad he wasn’t my soulmate,” she told Cordelia when she got back to the library. “I’m glad—” She looked down at the awkward doodles on her wrist—a whole bunch of weird skulls and a few scribbly places where her soulmate had clearly been testing their pen. “Whoever it is, I’m glad it isn’t Angel.”

“Dodged a bullet there,” Cordelia agreed.

 _“You_ didn’t,” said Buffy, playfully nudging Cordelia’s shoulder.

“What _ever,”_ scoffed Cordelia, grinning a little tiredly as they watched Willow prepare the ritual. “Do you think this’ll work?”

Buffy thought of Giles, his grim face, his tote bag of weapons. “I don’t know what’ll happen if it doesn’t,” she said, trying to keep the wobble out of her voice. She couldn’t stop thinking about the way Angelus had said _pretty little Ms. Calendar._ She had been told by _everyone_ that thinking Angelus was her fault was irrational, but the same couldn’t be said for what had happened to Ms. Calendar. If Buffy hadn’t kicked her out of the group—if they’d known what she was working on—

“Then don’t worry about it just yet,” said Cordelia softly, and nudged Buffy’s shoulder back. “Okay?”

Buffy felt strangely comforted. Which was _seriously_ weird, because this was _Cordelia_ she was talking to. “…okay,” she acquiesced, and settled back into her chair.

The ritual felt strangely anticlimactic. Most of it was just chanting, and the only noticeable part was when Willow abruptly switched from Latin to Romanian halfway through—which was weird, but not weird enough for Buffy to feel any sense of confidence. The Orb glowed at the end, which was _something,_ but how could they possibly _know—_

And then Willow looked directly to Buffy, her eyes no longer clouded with a mixture of magic and concentration. “It worked,” she said simply. “He’s gotten his soul.”


	2. jenny

“You don’t have any questions about why you’re here?” Angelus asked, smiling slowly. “Why you’re not dead?” He moved forward to the goon holding Jenny’s arms behind her back, motioning for him to let go. He did. Before Jenny could even think about doing anything, Angelus had slammed his hands against the wall—one on either side of her head, effectively trapping her in place. _“Anyway,”_ he said. “We’re going to send a little message to your boyfriend, and then you and I are going to have some _fun.”_

“What?” Jenny’s mixture of fear and loathing was replaced by genuine confusion.

Casually, Angelus pulled out a pen.

Jenny let out a weak laugh. “What are you doing?” she said, but she thought she knew. “Why—why would you think that _Rupert—”_

“You’re around long enough, you know the signs of true-blue soulmates,” Angelus replied, uncapping the pen. Jenny tried to flatten herself against the wall, but he tugged her arm effortlessly up towards him, shoving up her sleeve to write something in neat, gorgeous script on her forearm. “And you don’t have to be around _that_ long to notice the way Rupert Giles looks at you. If you’re not his soulmate, I’ll eat—” He considered. “You, I guess.”

Jenny looked down at her arm. _Guess what I have, Watcher,_ it read. “Why are you doing this?” she said, because she honestly didn’t have a clue. This kind of long-term torment wasn’t Angelus’s MO. She’d posed a threat to him, sure, but he was the kind of guy to neutralize a threat as quickly as possible—

“Your Watcher’s been working on a little secret project,” said Angelus, grinning slowly. “Drusilla can tell.”

“…what?” Jenny’s stomach turned. Rupert wasn’t working on _anything._

“My Dru’s a smart cookie,” Angelus was saying. “She saw enough of the future to figure out that you and Giles have a soulmate connection, and she used _that_ to figure out that one of you has been working on getting me _fixed_ this whole damn time.” He jerked Jenny’s arm, his smile sharp and predatory. “And given that your tribe’s not all that huge on forgiveness—not to mention the fact that your Mr. Giles bought an Orb of Thesulah not too long ago—it didn’t take a lot for me to figure out _which_ one of you it was.”

Jenny felt a sudden flare of hope. _He didn’t know._ He didn’t know that the Ritual of Restoration was sitting on a flash drive on her desk. He thought that it was _Rupert’s_ doing, not hers, and he’d grabbed her because he was trying to get something out of _Rupert._ Angelus was two steps behind—

—but, she realized with an unpleasant jolt, the Scoobies were _three_ steps behind. Absolutely no one was going to be able to figure out what had happened to her, especially since none of them knew what she’d been working on.

She had to buy them some time.

“Soulmates have always _fascinated_ me,” Angelus murmured, pressing his body against Jenny’s. Jenny thought about Rupert; their argument suddenly felt so monumentally _stupid_ in the face of this. They’d been on the verge of a reconciliation. He would be so horrified to know that she was here right now. “The concept of two people _destined_ for each other. Mine was Darla, you know. Never got around to telling Buffy _that.”_

Jenny thought about Willow—no, she couldn’t think of the children right now. What would they think of what was happening to her?

Angelus’s hand was on Jenny’s hip. “And the concept of breaking that connection,” he purred, “of taking what isn’t mine—well, I’ve always been kind of a rulebreaker.” His mouth was at her neck. “Giles is a lucky, lucky guy, huh? He ever tell you how beautiful you are, Jenny? And I’m not just saying that, either—even if I _wasn’t_ trying to teach Giles a lesson, I’d still be getting ready to fuck you right now.”

Jenny thought about Buffy, and how she would let Angelus kill her a thousand times if it meant making sure that Buffy Summers never found out that this was happening. How when this was over, she would make Angel _promise_ not to tell anyone—not a single person—because Angelus was a monster, and Angel was a man, and Jenny had worked so goddamn hard to learn how to separate the two. She wasn’t going to let Angelus take that from her. She wasn’t going to let him turn her into another vengeful crusader.

She wasn’t wasn’t _wasn’t—_

* * *

Angelus put her up in a bizarrely ostentatious bedroom after—Jenny couldn’t finish that sentence, and didn’t. She wasn’t entirely sure where he’d brought her, but it seemed pretty far from Sunnydale, because she didn’t recognize the view from her window—or, more accurately, from a crack in her boarded-up window. The door to her bedroom was locked, and Angelus had taken her clothes, so she clumsily wrapped herself in a bedsheet, sat back against the headboard, and began to think.

This was a pretty phenomenally shitty situation. There was no easy way out, no _hard_ way out, no way out at _all._ She was likely heavily guarded by some of Angelus’s strongest vampires, the room itself was devoid of anything she could use to break out, and if she _did_ manage to get out, Angelus would turn his wrath towards the Scoobies.

Jenny looked down at her arm, bare of any response from Rupert. Part of her wanted to hope that he was mounting a rescue mission, but the more realistic part of her knew that if Rupert got a message like this, he’d be _gutted._ There was no way he’d want to involve the kids in something that he would see as _his fault_ —and no way that he would be able to get Angelus what he wanted.

Jenny was stuck here for the foreseeable future, and it was very likely that she wasn’t getting out.

“Well,” said Jenny to the empty room. “That was a really productive brainstorming session. Way to _fucking_ go, Janna.”

On the other hand, though, it wasn’t as though Angelus could _kill_ her—not while he was waiting on Rupert to deliver the ritual. Her life wasn’t at risk _yet,_ which meant that she still had some time to…

“To what?” Jenny said softly, looking down at her hands. They were shaking. That seemed unusual. “Wait here for help and let Angelus—”

 _If it keeps him busy,_ she thought. _If I can keep him interested, I buy myself a little more time. If I get used to it, it won’t hurt as much as it did the first time. If I can pretend it’s not happening, if I can pretend it’s Rupert, if if if—_

Jenny had never been good at long cons. She’d never been the kind of person good enough at lying to play mind games, no matter _what_ Rupert and the kids had thought of her. She had never been anyone but her own authentic self, and while that had earned her eventual points with Rupert, it wasn’t going to help her here.

But Rupert was going to be in serious danger if Angelus figured out that it was _Jenny_ who had all the information, _Jenny_ who had memorized the ritual, _Jenny_ who had an Orb of Thesulah in her desk drawer. (God only knew why her idiot boyfriend had decided to buy an Orb of Thesulah himself. He’d probably thought it was some kind of a paperweight.) As long as Jenny kept Angelus interested and Rupert out of harm’s way, she was buying the Scoobies time to figure out some other way to take Angelus down—or, if she was _really_ lucky, time to find the floppy disk in her computer lab.

It would be easy to do this if it meant keeping Rupert safe, Jenny decided. Terrible, but easy, if it meant that Angel’s attention would be on trying to get Rupert to hand over information that he didn’t have. And Rupert—if he really _was_ Jenny’s soulmate, there was a solid chance that he might be able to piece this together on his own time.

An idea struck Jenny, and she turned to the bedside table, tugging open the drawer. She felt _sure_ that she’d seen Angelus leave a pen behind—

“Looking for something?”

Jenny turned, reflexively wrapping the sheets a little tighter around herself. She couldn’t think of anything non-incriminating to say.

* * *

Jenny didn’t think about—didn’t _allow herself_ to think about—the moments when she wasn’t alone, when Angelus was with her, when he was doing anything other than talking to her or taunting her or sweeping smugly out of the room. She didn’t read the words he left on her skin, because after the third or fourth time, she read a graphic description of exactly what he had done to her, and the words brought her back to the memory, and the memory was best left forgotten.

During the daytime, before the vampires slept, Jenny was given small amounts of food. She ate quietly and thoughtfully, and didn’t look at the words on her skin. She caught phrases— _broken, used, mine, your fault—_ but none of them stung, because this was a battle she was waging and she was entirely determined to win.

When she was done eating, she would set the food carefully aside, snuggle into the bedsheets, and think of Rupert. It was too painful to think of the children, but she could think of him without it hurting; perhaps because she knew that wherever he was, he was hurting in the exact same way as her. It made her feel closer to him. She wanted to be the good, strong, valiant kind of person that could unselfishly wish Rupert _wasn’t_ her soulmate; the kind of person who loved him too much to ever imagine him in the same kind of pain as her.

Jenny wasn’t exactly that. Jenny was…she thought the word for it was probably _pragmatic,_ because she knew herself, and she knew Rupert, and she knew that Drusilla was probably right. It would make _sense,_ them being soulmates. She’d never allowed herself to want someone in her life for the long haul before Rupert, and this last year had made it pretty clear to her that being a Watcher’s partner wasn’t exactly a job a lot of people were up for. Neither of them had _meant_ to fall in love, but it had _happened—_ and now that the concept had been presented to her, Jenny knew that Rupert had to be her soulmate. He was the only person in her world who would respond to vicious taunts with radio silence.

 _I love you,_ she thought, tracing the letters on her arm, letting her vision unfocus so she couldn’t see the words that Angelus had left there. _I-L-O-V-E-Y-O-U._ When she remembered that her pain was shared—that she wasn’t just suffering in silence—it hurt a little less.

(When Angelus was in the room, he would whisper to her that maybe Rupert _wasn’t_ her soulmate, that maybe Angelus should just kill her and be done with it, that maybe Jenny was as stupid as her great-great-aunt for even _thinking_ that someone as noble and true as the Watcher would look twice at her. When Angelus was in the room, he would whisper that really, he was only keeping Jenny around for some _stress release,_ for some _fun—)_

(But Jenny didn’t think about when Angelus was in the room, so it wasn’t of relevance.)

* * *

Hours blurred into days blurred into weeks. Jenny lost track of time. She remembered the important things, like why she was doing this and who she was doing it for—but the rest of it was harder to hold onto. She couldn’t let herself think of anything too happy; the contrast between _then_ and _now_ would be too extreme. She couldn’t let herself think about the reality of her situation; it would destroy her, and she couldn’t afford to be destroyed.

At some point, she felt a strange tingle on the back of her hand—but it was when Angelus was in the room, so it didn’t matter, and so she didn’t look at the response he wrote. New variables didn’t mean allowing herself to break old rules. When he left, though, she took a breath, smoothed down her hair, and wrapped herself in the bedsheets again. It made her feel a tiny bit more dignified, even if no one was there to see her.

It was nearing sunrise, Jenny realized suddenly. Angelus never went out this early. And he’d never—her brain did a stutter-stop, but she pushed past it, because this was _important—_ he’d never _stopped fucking her_ to go out. Something had changed. Something was _different._

Heart pounding, Jenny looked down at her hands. On the back of her right hand, in Rupert’s neat cursive: _For my own sake, please elaborate._ On the back of her left hand, in Angelus’s near-perfect script: _Your little secret project. Give it up and I’ll give her back—and don’t even think about trying to use it on me._

And that was when she noticed something else: in his haste to leave the room, Angelus had left a _pen._

She could hear him coming back already. She didn’t have a lot of time. Whatever she wrote, she had to make this _count._ Some kind of hint, some way to communicate—

On impulse, Jenny scribbled, _Save me, Snobby._ He probably wouldn’t understand—it wasn’t exactly her clearest message, after all—but maybe it might get him to look in her computer lab. She hadn’t called him _Snobby_ since the Moloch incident, after all.

Angelus opened the door, and Jenny dropped the pen. The thunderous expression on his face made it clear that she’d pay dearly for her tiny victory.

* * *

When Angelus left again, there were finger-shaped bruises on Jenny’s arms. This wasn’t irregular; he had never attempted to regulate his vampire strength when touching her. The irregular part was the fact that there was also a quickly-blooming bruise on her cheek, and it stung in a way that suggested he might have also broken the skin. Jenny winced, raising a hand to rub at her face. That made it worse. She let her hand drop.

“Megalomaniac asshole,” she muttered, flopping back into the pillows and glaring at the ceiling. However long it had been, it still wasn’t enough for her to stop being deeply pissed off at the situation she was in. “I hope he chokes on someone’s artery.”

There was a crash from downstairs.

 _That,_ Jenny thought idly, was pretty new. She examined the writing on her arms without reading it, considering whether or not to risk trying to wipe some of it away. Angelus hadn’t taken kindly to her first attempt to do so, and she doubted he’d appreciate her trying to do it again—especially if she succeeded. It was just that at this point, she was getting _bored_ with her situation, and—and it was hard _not_ to feel hopeless after her one stolen moment of hope had ended with her as bruised and battered as always.

More crashes. A few shouts and hisses, and one long, drawn-out scream.

With an exhausted sigh, Jenny used the pillows to muffle the sounds from outside her room to the best of her abilities. She didn’t _care_ what was happening, because she was going to be stuck here for—for the rest of her natural life, probably, or maybe until she stopped looking pretty and started looking malnourished and miserable. She was _tired,_ and she definitely wasn’t getting enough sleep, and—

The door banged violently open. Clumsily wrapping the bedsheets around her, Jenny tried to pull herself up to face Angelus again—but her head spun from the too-quick attempt at movement, and she fell back.

The impact of her head falling against the headboard didn’t come. As the spinning died down, Jenny realized that someone was supporting her—holding her tightly, but not vampire-tightly. Not tightly enough to bruise. If it was Angelus, this was a weird fucking game for him to play; he never held her like _this._ Not like he was—

_Rupert._

The realization hit Jenny lightning-fast. Jerking her head up—she didn’t care about how dizzy she got from it—Jenny found herself looking into Rupert Giles’s eyes.

She wasn’t sure what she was expecting. She hadn’t even dared to imagine this moment. If she had, though, in quiet, hidden moments of weakness, she’d always imagined Rupert as a wrecked, broken man, guilt and sorrow all over his face—looking at her like she was some kind of horribly broken china doll. But Rupert’s eyes were wide and wondrous, a small, disbelieving smile on his face as he stared almost hungrily at her. He didn’t say anything at all.

Jenny stared back, her heart beating fast, and raised shaking hands to his face. As she touched his cheek, his eyes closed, smile widening into a brilliant grin. She didn’t say anything either. Couldn’t, because she was so, so afraid that this wasn’t real, that this was some kind of trick—

And then something occurred to her. Carefully, she removed her hands from his face, unbuttoning the first two buttons of his shirt to reveal the skin underneath. Sure enough, the exposed skin revealed Angelus’s picture-perfect script—and as she looked at his arms, she saw the same messages written so meticulously on hers.

She couldn’t help it. She laughed. “Hi!” she said tearfully.

“I’m so sorry I took so long,” said Rupert. His smile was shaking in places. “But I’m _unbelievably_ glad to see you alive.”

* * *

Rupert called the kids as soon as he’d gotten both of them back to his apartment. “Yes—yes, she’s with me,” he was saying, turned a little away from Jenny as though he was trying to keep the contents of the phone call on the down-low. Jenny, who was sitting on the couch and still feeling a little like she might blink to find all of this gone and Angelus pinning her down, watched him hungrily and didn’t particularly care whether this was impolite of her. “Yes—um, that is, no. No, I—” A pause. “No, Angel is quite dead.” Another pause. “Yes, he had his soul. I just—” He took an unsteady breath. “I was quite angry, Buffy. Still am, as a matter of fact, a-and you may have to wait before I can give you a genuine apology, because—”

He stopped, then, and turned towards Jenny, clearly listening to something that Buffy was saying. His face had softened just a tiny bit. _What?_ Jenny mouthed, but he just waved his hand a little and continued to listen. “Oh,” he said. “Oh—well. I wasn’t expecting—yes. Thank you.” He smiled slightly. “Yes, I will. Goodbye.”

“What was that about?” said Jenny curiously.

Rupert sat down next to her, covering her hands with his. “Buffy has apparently given my staking of Angel her firm and fervent blessing,” he said. “She isn’t at all pleased regarding what happened to you. None of the children are, as it happens.”

“Wow,” said Jenny. “I leave town for two weeks and _everything_ changes, huh?”

But Rupert didn’t seem to be listening. He’d gone back to looking at her in that same half-desperate kind of way, like he thought she’d disappear if he blinked. _Soulmates,_ sang out the fierce, warm optimist in Jenny, the one Angelus couldn’t have killed even if he’d killed _her._ She reached out and took Rupert’s hands, and he squeezed her own in response. “I love you,” he said softly. “I’m so glad you’re all right.”

“I love you too,” said Jenny, and smiled a little unsteadily. Words tumbled out without her consent. “I-I—didn’t know what you were doing, these last two weeks. I wasn’t sure why you wouldn’t reply if you weren’t—”

“If I wasn’t your soulmate?” Rupert hesitated, then said, “Angelus knew what he was doing. I was positively mad with grief and worry; I was half-convinced you were all but dead. The children noticed that something was wrong, forced my hand, and—and it’s really _their_ doing that you’re out of there, not mine.”

Jenny tugged one of her hands free of his, gently stroking his face. He turned, immediately, towards her touch, exhaling in a way that sounded very much like a sob. “Hey,” she whispered. “It’s okay.”

“I _really_ don’t think I’m the one that needs comfort right now,” said Rupert weakly.

“I’ll tell you when I need comfort. Right now, I think you need it more than me.” Jenny moved forward towards him on the couch, bumping her forehead against his as she brought their joined hands to her heart. This was easy. This she knew how to do.

But then Rupert said, “Jenny, how could I _possibly—_ what I went through _pales_ in comparison to—”

Jenny moved back as though she’d been hit. Before she could stop herself, she said, “Rupert, just _shut up_ about me, okay? Just—” and then _immediately_ felt awful. Letting out a shaky breath, she tacked on, “I’m—I’m sorry. I just don’t want to talk about me right now.”

“That’s what I’m worried about.”

“Well— _don’t_ worry about it! I’m—”

“Don’t tell me you’re fine. Don’t lie to me like that.”

“Stop _assuming_ you know how I feel, okay? You _don’t!”_

“Oh, and you know how _I_ feel?” countered Rupert, but he seemed more miffed than genuinely hurt. “Jenny—” He sighed. “Just tell me what I can do to help, all right?”

“I don’t _want_ you to help, I want to _help you!”_

The absurdity of their argument hit them both at the exact same time. Jenny was the first one to laugh—a cracked, incredulous sound—and that was what made Rupert’s eyes crinkle at the corners, his frustrated expression giving way to an exhausted smile. “We _are_ a pair, aren’t we?” he said.

That brought Jenny back to something better and infinitely more wonderful. She was wearing Rupert’s jacket, still—he’d carefully buttoned it around her and the bedsheet to “preserve her modesty,” which was adorably ridiculous considering he’d seen her naked _many_ times before—and she pushed up the sleeve to look down at her ink-smudged left arm. Rupert’s smile faltered a little, but Jenny gave him a small, encouraging grin, then rolled up his left sleeve, pressing her arm against his. Smudge for smudge, the messages stayed exactly identical.

“I would _never_ have guessed,” she said softly. “Not in a million years.”

“Oh?”

Jenny tilted her head back, looking at the ceiling, then said, “I guess I always assumed I didn’t have a soulmate. No one wrote me, and my family wouldn’t have let me write back anyway. But—”

“A true Watcher’s soulmate is their calling,” said Rupert. “I suppose—” He laughed a little bitterly. “I suppose that I was never a true Watcher.”

“Oh, shut the fuck up with that nonsense.” Jenny gently punched his shoulder. “You’re as true a Watcher as any.”

But Rupert shook his head. “I know you mean that as a compliment,” he said, “but I spent that first week _begging_ the Council for—” His voice shook. “For any kind of help,” he said, “that would free you from Angelus.” (Jenny flinched.) “And for seven days, they took my calls only to tell me that this was my own fault, because a civilian should never have been involved in this fight. That this was what you and I both deserved for our irresponsibility, and that hopefully this would serve as a lesson to me regarding what a Watcher’s priorities needed to be.”

Jenny stared at him.

“It did,” said Rupert. “And my priorities are going to be _quite_ different from now on.” He smiled a little tiredly. “I think I need to-to learn how to be just a _bit_ selfish. For my sake, of course, but also—”

“For Buffy’s.”

“For _yours,”_ said Rupert reprovingly. “Kindly don’t play guessing games when I’m attempting a romantic gesture.” He considered. “But yes, also for Buffy’s. It won’t do her any good to have a Watcher wholly and completely devoted to supporting her at his own expense. She needs…” He trailed off. “She needs an adult to model behavior that isn’t self-sacrificing, or for the greater good. The Council isn’t designed for that sort of thing—in fact, I suspect it’s specifically designed to _discourage_ Slayers from having goals and ambitions, hopes and dreams.”

Jenny moved forward, settling herself into his arms, and closed her eyes.

“It’s a ridiculous system—oh, Jenny, do you need to sleep?”

“Keep talking,” said Jenny softly.

“Oh?”

“I’ve missed your voice.”

“…oh,” said Rupert. He sounded deeply touched. “Well. Are you sure you don’t want—food first, or a bath, or—” When Jenny shook her head, he kissed her hair—she smiled into his chest—and said, “I _will_ stop talking _eventually,_ because at some point you _do_ need to change out of that bedsheet. At any rate…” He trailed off, clearly thinking, then said, “I _have_ missed you. Missed talking to you about…silly things, I don’t know. I haven’t exactly collected a store of things to talk about—I’m sure you can tell I’ve not been my rakishly handsome soulmate self as of late—”

Jenny laughed against his shirt, pressing a kiss to the exposed skin at his collarbone, and cuddled closer. She thought she could stay here forever, happy and warm—it had been so _cold_ where Angelus had kept her—

Except she didn’t have to think about it so it didn’t matter—

Except were the rules different now, now that she was out? Now that it was safe to think about what he’d done, over and over? Did she have to think about it now that she _could?_

“Jenny?” She must have tensed in his arms, because she could hear the worry in the way Rupert said her name.

“I’m…” Jenny stopped herself from saying _fine._ “Trying my best,” she said instead.

Rupert tugged her closer.


	3. giles

Giles was plating the grilled cheese sandwiches when his arm tingled. He’d become used to this sensation, and the flare of panicked adrenaline in response took a moment to die down; up until now, he had associated the feeling with a present reminder that Jenny was in danger and he was powerless to stop it. But Jenny was fine, he reminded himself. Jenny was lounging in a bubble bath he’d run for her. If this was a message—

His heart flipped over. If this was a message, it was from _her._ Rolling up his sleeve, he felt a sudden rush of warmth.

For the first time in weeks, his arm was almost entirely clear—devoid of vicious taunts or horrible threats from Angelus. Only four words remained. Three of them were ones he recognized, written in Angel’s ostentatious cursive—but the one at the beginning was in messy, lovable capital letters, underlined a few times for emphasis.

_NOT your fault, Watcher._

After a moment, the words were scrubbed away and replaced by three new ones.

_I love you!!_

It was, perhaps, the cheerful exclamation points that finally shattered Giles. Pressing his hands to his face, he did his best to regulate his breathing and _not_ burst out sobbing; he didn’t want to concern Jenny. Jenny, who had been through so _much_ and hadn’t been driven away by it. Jenny, who had cuddled into his arms, trusting and loving, as though he was her shelter from the storm. Jenny, who looked at him with unending trust, who looked at him like she was _safe_ with him—

_You had better not be losing your shit out there, Rupert._

Giles blinked down at his arm. Hastily, he wiped a few stray tears away, then grabbed a nearby pen to quickly write a response.

_I love you too. Do you want me to bring your sandwiches in?_

_YES._

The door was unlocked by the time Giles arrived with the food tray. Carefully, he nudged it open.

Jenny was resting her chin on her forearms, peering up at him from the side of the bathtub. “Hi,” she said, giving him a sweet, sleepy smile.

The fact that absolutely anyone could have put someone as soft and warm and ridiculous as Jenny through _weeks_ of unspeakable horror was more than enough for Giles to want to murder Angel all over again. “Hello,” he said, sitting down next to her with the food tray. “How are you doing?”

“Hmm.” Jenny let her cheek rest against her arms, eyes fluttering shut. “Water’s warm.”

“Do you want to hold off on the sandwiches?”

Jenny shook her head. “Just give me a minute.”

Giles considered this, then leaned over to the small cabinet, pulling out a book he’d been meaning to get started on reading. Settling himself against the tub, he opened it to the first page—

“What’s that?” Jenny’s arms wrapped around his shoulders from behind.

Giles leaned back into her. “Not sure. Haven’t gotten started yet.”

“Why’s it in your bathroom?”

“I like reading in the tub.”

“Of _course_ you do.” She rested her cheek against the side of his face; he felt a surge of mingled love and arousal. “I missed you.”

Giles felt his smile tremble. “I missed you too.”

“Can I have a sandwich?”

“Oh!” Giles tugged himself free of her arms—he was a little wet, now, but he didn’t mind—and set up the food tray so that it was balanced over the tub. “Sandwiches,” he said with an awkward grin. “Care and courtesy of Rupert Giles.”

Jenny considered, then said, “Do you want to come in with me now?”

“—oh,” said Giles a little breathlessly. “Well—” He hesitated. “I-I don’t want to make you feel—”

Jenny opened her eyes. He had never seen her look so unguardedly relaxed before. Some terrible, self-deprecating part of him thought wryly, _of course, two weeks with a homicidal vampire does make you the better option;_ he shoved the thought away, because it just wasn’t _true._ He knew she wouldn’t be smiling languidly at one of the children, or at Snyder, or—lord, this was not the right train of thought.

 _“Can_ I kiss you?” he said, the words tumbling out before he could snatch them back.

Jenny blinked, blushing, and didn’t say anything.

“I-I’m sorry,” said Giles immediately, “I’m sorry, I’m really—I just didn’t—I of course don’t expect anything, I hope you know that, I—”

“No, Rupert, _yes,”_ said Jenny hastily. “I just—Angelus didn’t _ask.”_ And then she went _white._

Giles felt the bottom drop out of his stomach. He’d been fairly certain, of course—the bruises, the bedsheet, the way she hadn’t seemed quite comfortable exposing herself—but it was an entirely different thing to hear it from Jenny herself. It took absolutely every ounce of his Watcher training to reach out and place a steady hand over hers on the edge of the tub. He was biting his lip to keep himself from saying anything that might upset her.

Jenny let out a shuddering breath and shook herself a little. The easy relaxation on her face was gone. “He didn’t ask,” she said again.

“Jenny, you don’t have to—”

“No, I want to,” said Jenny, looking directly up at Giles. She swallowed. “I feel like at some point I should talk about it.”

“My only worry is that I don’t know if I’m _qualified_ to help in the way you need,” said Giles uncertainly.

“I don’t exactly know what kind of therapist is going to take _hi, I was repeatedly raped by the vampire that killed a beloved daughter of my people_ without batting an eye,” said Jenny flatly, in a way that reminded Giles quite distinctly of the Jenny he knew. He thought it might have made him smile if not for—

If not for—

“Oh, _Rupert,”_ said Jenny, in a _very_ different tone of voice, and some of the bathwater spilled over the edge when she pulled him into a fierce hug. He was on his knees, it was a _horrible_ angle, he’d likely have to change out of his wet things—but Jenny, even slick with water and perfumed bubble bath, was still as stubbornly comforting as ever. “Oh—honey, baby, it’s okay! I’m—god, I mean, I’m not gonna be fine _any_ time soon, but he’s _dead._ He’s not coming back. You made sure of that, and I’m never going to go away again, okay?”

Something long-broken in Giles felt like it had been unexpectedly nudged back into place. He pulled his head up to look at her, well aware that his cheeks were wet and his glasses smudged. He supposed he could blame it on the bathwater. “Not _ever?”_ he said.

Jenny gave him a shaky smile. “Never.”

“Promise?”

“I _promise._ Come _here—”_ She kissed him, clumsy and soft in a way she had never kissed him before. _Tender,_ Giles realized, like she loved him, like they were in love— “Rupert, you really _should_ get out of your clothes and get in with me,” said Jenny between kisses; she was laughing and crying at the same time. “You’re soaking wet.”

“Mm. _You’re_ wet.” Giles broke the kiss to nuzzle her neck, pressing an open-mouthed kiss there.

“I _missed_ you,” Jenny whispered tearfully. “I missed you so much. Every single day I thought about you and it _hurt_ but I couldn’t stop doing it—”

“I can’t abide it,” Giles whispered back. “I can’t believe—I just _let_ you—let _him—”_

“I let _myself.”_

“That’s not the way that works and you know it—”

“Rupert, he thought it was _you,”_ said Jenny shakily. “He thought he was getting his revenge on you. Can you imagine what he’d have done to me if he knew that it was _my_ project putting him at risk?” She kissed the top of his head, fingers tangling almost possessively in his hair. “It could have been you he was—”

“I’d happily have let it be me.”

“Shut _up._ It was _me,_ that’s my point, and if it comforts me right now to know that that kept it from being you—”

Giles got the message. Pulling back a little to look at Jenny, he began to unbutton his shirt. Halfway through, she batted his hands away and began to do it for him, her soapy hands slipping a bit as she tugged at the dampened fabric.

* * *

 _“Do_ you have a pen?”

Jenny, who had very clearly been dozing off again in the bathwater, stirred, mumbled something, and cuddled back into Giles’s side.

“Only,” said Giles, looking down at the half-faded _I love you!!_ on his arm, “I’d like to know how you managed to write your message to me.”

“Mm. Pen’s on the cabinet, I put it there. Why do you want it?”

Giles considered, then said, “I’d like you to write something on me.”

“Oh?”

“Something nice.”

Jenny straightened up with a soft yawn, shifting to straddle him. Giles held her steady—it was quite hard _not_ to be aroused by his entirely naked soulmate sitting on his lap while she reached for a pen behind him, but he thought he was managing admirably—until she returned with the pen, carefully uncapping it and hesitating right above his heart. “Anything in particular?”

Giles shook his head.

In careful letters, Jenny wrote _You make me happy._

It was tantamount that Giles _not_ get distracted by the flutter of smitten delight he felt upon watching those words appear just to the right of Jenny’s collarbone—well, her left, his right, he supposed. He grinned a little, then said, “Now—it’s right there, isn’t it?”

“That’s usually how these things work,” said Jenny, who was smiling a little warily.

“Your love,” Giles tapped her words on his chest, “reflected back to you, via me.”

“What— _oh_ my god.” Jenny dropped her head to bump her forehead against his, letting out a warm, exasperated laugh that was music to Giles’s ears. “You are _such_ a fucking _sap!”_

“Guilty as charged,” said Giles, smiling up at her.

“So you’re saying—”

“Whatever you feel for me, that’s what I feel for you.”

Jenny considered, then took the pen out again, writing on the other side of Giles’s chest: _You’re concerningly technophobic._ “Does that one apply?”

“Do you really have to defuse _every_ soft and romantic moment with sarcasm?” said Giles.

“You love it.”

“Unfortunately for me, I really do.” Giles gathered her into his arms; she tossed the pen to the side and hugged him back. Damp tendrils of her dark hair clung to his face. “How are you feeling?”

“Happy,” said Jenny. “Like I never want to go anywhere but here.”

“You do have a job, you know—”

“Didn’t I resign?”

“Considering the extenuating circumstances, _and_ that Snyder hasn’t found a replacement, I think it’s safe to say that you have a job if you want it again.”

Jenny considered. Then, a little more carefully, she said, “Angelus took me from the high school, you know. I-I don’t know—I’m not sure if I’m ready to go back there just yet. Or if I’ll ever be.”

“I can promise I’ll support whatever you decide,” said Giles, and meant it.

“What if I decide—”

“No. Don’t come up with some terrible hypothetical in an attempt to prove me wrong, because then I’ll have to tell you that I _do_ support you, and the worst part is I’ll _mean_ it.”

“Grave-robbing?”

“If it makes you happy.”

“Serial killing?”

“Well, I’d assume you have a good _reason—”_

 _“Ru_ pert!” Jenny laughed again, pressing a kiss to his jaw.

It was strange and ridiculous, Giles thought, because—they had been through so _much,_ but they had _found each other._ As odd as it felt to be so blissfully happy after two weeks of nothing but terror and misery, it also felt impossible _not_ to be. This was his _soulmate_ in his arms. She had promised never to leave him. Never, never, and didn’t that mean all the more on a place like the Hellmouth? “If it makes you happy,” he said, “how could I _possibly_ deny you a single damn thing?”

* * *

Jenny changed into an extra pair of Giles’s boxers and one of his oversized t-shirts. Giles would have gone to get her clothing from her house, but she seemed extremely unwilling to let him out of her sight and even _more_ unwilling to leave his apartment—which, he thought, was entirely reasonable after what they’d both been through. He called Buffy instead, and she promised to drop by Jenny’s place and pick up some clothing as soon as she possibly could.

“The key’s under the mat,” said Jenny, who was toweling off her hair. “Did you tell her—”

“Of course,” said Giles, crossing the room—slowly—to stand in front of her. She handed him the towel, beaming up at him as she pushed her damp hair out of her face. “Do you want to go up to bed? Or—” He wavered.

“I want you with me,” said Jenny. Her smile trembled a little. “Probably for a really long time. I hope that’s not—”

“Jenny, I’ll not have you worrying about _anything_ that isn’t rest and recovery,” said Giles firmly. “Ask anything of me and I’ll give it gladly.”

“Because I’m your soulmate?”

“Because _I’m_ your _Rupert.”_ Jenny blinked, surprised; embarrassed by the raw emotion of his declaration, Giles blushed and looked away. “That is,” he said to a spot roughly five feet to Jenny’s right. “If you’ll—have me, even after—”

He felt her arms around him before he realized she’d moved forward. Looking into her eyes, he saw the all-but-frightened joy in Jenny’s smile. “I-I didn’t,” she said, and then swallowed. “I was—I thought—you’re the kind of guy who’d—I mean, if your soulmate had been someone else—”

“It never _could_ have been,” said Giles softly. “You or nothing, Jenny. I’ve known it for quite a long time.”

“A-and if Angelus had been wrong?” But Jenny’s smile wasn’t faltering, because they both knew the answer.

“That note was a clear forgery and I’d have figured it out…quite a lot faster, most likely,” said Giles ruefully. “Knowing _exactly_ what he was doing to you very effectively neutralized my ability to be a competently levelheaded researcher.”

Jenny smirked a little. “Please. You’ve _never_ been a competently levelheaded researcher.”

“There she is,” Giles whispered, and reached—carefully and slowly—to touch her face. She closed her eyes, nuzzling into his palm. “Can I kiss you, darling?”

Without opening her eyes, Jenny said, “You really don’t—you don’t have to ask about that, Rupert?”

“After what you’ve been through—”

“I know what I’ve been through. You don’t kiss like he did.” Jenny opened her eyes, smiling softly at him. “You could kiss me hard enough to bruise and you wouldn’t kiss like he did.”

“A-are you sure?”

Jenny’s smile trembled a little. Softly, she said, “We were kissing in your office about—god, I think it was two months ago, at least? And it was getting pretty hot and heavy, and I put my hand on your chest because I was running out of breath, and you—you pulled back and let me breathe until you were sure I was okay.”

Giles couldn’t entirely remember this moment, but it didn’t sound unfamiliar. “That’s not _special,_ Jenny,” he said tentatively, because he felt as though it needed to be said. “That’s nothing less than common decency and a rudimentary understanding of the importance of consent. That’s not—that doesn’t make me your soulmate.”

“I know _that,”_ said Jenny, tilting her head up to look almost hungrily at him. “But what makes you my soulmate is that _you_ know that too.”

It was taking all of Giles’s self-control not to press her against the wall and kiss her and keep her safe and warm in his arms for the rest of his fucking life, probably. “I love you,” he said instead, clumsy and breathless. Because he couldn’t kiss her, because even if she was ready maybe _he_ wasn’t, he said it again, and again: “I love you I love you I love—”

Jenny pulled him down into a kiss. He kept saying it, muffled against her mouth and his attempts to return her repeated soft kisses. She was laughing and crying at the same time as he pulled her flush against him, and she only broke the kiss when the laughter had faded away. She didn’t say anything, nor did she explain why she was suddenly sobbing almost too hard to stand on her own; Giles gathered her up into his arms and let her hide her face in his chest.

“I thought you’d never come,” she sobbed. “I thought—I thought I-I’d die there.”

“Never,” Giles whispered into her hair.

“I-I thought—”

“You’re safe and you won’t ever be anything _but.”_

Jenny’s sobs increased in both volume and frequency; her grip on his lapels tightened. Giles held her as tightly and close as he could.

* * *

Jenny fell asleep first. She slept as though she hadn’t slept in weeks—which, Giles suspected, she might not have—and she was lying with her head pillowed on his chest, which was making it a bit difficult for Giles (a side sleeper by nature) to fall asleep himself. He of course didn’t mind in the slightest. Jenny alive and safe and impeding his circadian rhythms was worlds better than Jenny suffering at the hands of Angelus and Giles’s sleeping plagued with nightmares.

He looked down at the writing on his chest; his pajama top was unbuttoned so that he could see it clearly.

_You make me happy._

Jenny mumbled something in her sleep, cuddling close into Giles. She looked smaller than he remembered her being, and even asleep, the shadows hadn’t really left her face. It was so hard, Giles thought, to let go of his guilt and self-hatred for long enough to care for Jenny the way she needed; if they hadn’t been soulmates, this would never have happened.

Then again—if they hadn’t been soulmates, Jenny would have died weeks ago.

Would she have wanted that? It would have been quick, Giles knew; Angelus was brutally efficient when it came to neutralizing threats. The only reason he’d let this threat to his existence go on as long as he did was because of Jenny and Giles’s soulmate connection, and the seductive opportunity to make both of them horribly miserable at the same time. But without that soulmate connection, Jenny would have died quickly and relatively painlessly—at least in comparison to weeks of tortured seclusion and bruises left by an ungentle brute of a vampire.

 _Fuck_ those historians five times sideways, the ones who had waxed poetry about Angelus being a skilled artist and a master of precision. Fuck them, and let them have a look at what he’d done to someone bright and brash and much more fragile than Giles had ever let himself think about. Jenny’s fingers were curled against his chest, gripping a fistful of his pajama shirt, and there were finger-shaped bruises at her wrist.

Giles thought about killing Angelus. It had been an ultimately unsatisfactory moment; Angelus had had his soul back, and he’d been standing outside the door to Jenny’s room. Upon seeing Giles, he’d looked up with a sense of helpless relief, like he knew what Giles was about to do. Death, Giles remembered thinking, would be too kind for the bastard—but then he’d seen the soulmate ink on Angel’s fingers and rage had overtaken him.

He regretted it. He should have had time to think of something worse, worse than what Angelus had put Jenny through, worse than anything Angelus had put _anyone_ through—

Jenny sighed sleepily, and he felt an open-mouthed kiss at his collarbone. Looking down at her—her softly tousled hair, her closed eyes—Giles was reminded of the fact that the woman he loved didn’t have a vengeful bone in her body. More important than Angelus, Giles thought, was holding his soulmate close and making sure she was never put in such a position again.

* * *

Giles was woken by an insistent and impatient knocking on his door. He felt Jenny tense as she awoke, and felt a twist in his own heart as she clung to him fearfully. “Just the door,” he whispered, stroking her hair, “just the door, it’s the children, I’m sure—”

“Don’t—don’t go,” said Jenny shakily, tightening her grip on his pajama shirt. “You can’t—if I—”

“All right, we’ll go together,” said Giles as reasonably as he could with a horrible lump in his throat. He had never seen Jenny so visibly and viscerally afraid. Carefully, he scooped her up bridal-style, bedsheets and all.

Jenny’s fear seemed to dissolve somewhat at this. _“Rupert!”_ she said with a shaky laugh, now clinging to him mostly out of an effort to keep her balance. “I’m not an _infant!”_

“I don’t want to leave you alone if it’ll worry you,” said Giles simply.

“Babe, _everything_ is worrying me. Being left alone for thirty seconds won’t kill me.”

“You’ve spent enough time alone. I shall overcompensate until you are positively sick of me.” Jenny turned her face into his chest, laughing softly, and Giles felt a curl of warmth in response. Carefully, he maneuvered them through the bedroom, down the stairs, and to the door, tugging it awkwardly open just as the knocking began to reach a crescendo. “Cordelia,” he said, amused. “I should have guessed _you_ were the one knocking.”

 _“Ms. Calendar!”_ sobbed out Buffy, and proceeded to burst into tears so violent that she actually collapsed. It took the collective effort of Xander and Oz to keep her steady (Willow, though not affected to the point of crumpling to the floor, was crying too, and therefore couldn’t contribute). “I’m so-o-o sorry!” Buffy wailed.

To Giles’s surprise, Jenny’s response to this was to hide her face in his chest and not say anything. This didn’t seem like Jenny at all. “Jenny’s been through a bit of a shock,” he said carefully. “If you’re all to visit her, I-I think she’ll need you to talk about things that _aren’t_ what she’s gone through, all right? She isn’t ready to talk about any of it with you just yet.”

Buffy, who was still sobbing, pulled herself away from Willow and Xander to sit on the steps. After a moment, Cordelia sat down next to her. “I think the rest of them won’t have a problem, Giles, but I can stay with Buffy,” she said, placing a hand on Buffy’s shoulder. “If that’s okay with everyone?”

Willow, who seemed to have managed to get her crying _somewhat_ under control, gave Cordelia a wobbly nod, then gave Jenny and Giles an even wobblier smile. “I-I can talk about other things, Ms. Calendar,” she said encouragingly. “Did you know I’ve been teaching your classes for the last two weeks? Snyder didn’t want to hire a replacement so late in the semester. He was talking about abolishing the entire computer science department next year—”

“What a fucking idiot,” said Jenny, raising her head to fix Willow with a reassuringly familiar expression. “Did you tell him he’s a fucking idiot?”

“I don’t think he’d take kindly to that,” said Xander with a humorless laugh.

“No, he never _has_ been able to handle the truth,” Giles agreed mildly. “Shall all of you come inside? Oh— _have_ all of you had breakfast?”

The children exchanged sheepish looks. “We all camped out at Buffy’s,” said Willow awkwardly, “and we figured we’d want to get over here as soon as possible…so there hasn’t really been _any_ time to eat between waking up and coming here.”

Now that Giles was looking a bit closer, he could see that absolutely all of the children were wearing the same clothes as yesterday. _“Goodness,”_ he said, alarmed. “Come in at once! I’ll make all of you breakfast along with us, you all must be _starving—”_

“Eggs?” said Jenny softly to him.

Whenever Jenny used that tone of voice—sweet, sleepy, and utterly relaxed—Giles had the absurd urge to promise her his house, life savings, and firstborn child. “Eggs, darling, yes,” he murmured, adjusting her in his arms to kiss her forehead. “Don’t worry about a single solitary thing, all right? I’ve got it handled.”

“Jesus, that is _nauseating,”_ said Cordelia, glaring at them both. “We _get_ it! You’re soulmates! There are _children_ present, Giles, do you two want to lose your _jobs?_ Though I guess Ms. Calendar already _has_ lost hers—”

 _“CORDY!”_ said Willow and Xander at the same time, whirling to glare at her.

Giles, however, only had eyes for Jenny—whose smile had gotten bigger and brighter at Cordelia’s complaints. “Thanks, Cordy, I’ll keep that in mind,” she said. “Listen, Buffy—” her expression softened as Buffy, who still hadn’t stopped crying, began to sob _harder_ at being addressed by Jenny, “—if you want to help out, do you think at some point you could pick up some of the clothing from my house? There’s a key in one of the fake rocks by the cactus garden.”

“Why do you have a cactus garden?” said Willow curiously.

“Low-maintenance,” said Jenny, at the same time Giles said, “She kills every plant she has.”

“Huh,” said Oz. “Makes sense.”

* * *

Buffy came back with the clothing around the same time that everyone else had finished their breakfast—though the half-eaten bagel in hand suggested that Mrs. Summers had pressed some food on her before she left. She set the boxes down by the sofa, then walked over to Jenny, kneeling down in front of her and looking up at her without a word.

Jenny looked a little overwhelmed. Sensing a potential calamity, Giles stepped in, tugging Buffy up and to her feet before carefully steering her over to the other side of the room—far enough away that the rest of the group couldn’t hear them, but close enough that Jenny could still see them. “Buffy, what’s wrong?” he said softly.

“How can you even _ask_ me that.” Buffy’s voice trembled. “My boyfriend raped Ms. Calendar and kept her prisoner, a-and I just—we’re all acting like it didn’t happen, and I _can’t._ I can’t sit here and pretend like—like this isn’t my fault, like I couldn’t have—”

“Not one part of this was your fault,” said Giles, quiet and stern. “Do you hear me, Buffy?”

Buffy looked away from him and didn’t say anything.

“Do you remember what I told you, that night when you thought I would be angry at you for what Angel became?” Giles reached out, placing a hand on Buffy’s shoulder. Her face crumpled at his touch. “I said that you _couldn’t_ have known what would happen. There is no way you would have made the choices you made if you’d had any inkling of what Angel would become, and _that’s_ why absolutely none of this is your fault.” He swallowed. This next part was going to be harder for him to say. “And your boyfriend didn’t—he didn’t do that to Jenny. You know Angel never would have done that. Not to her, and certainly not to you.”

“That’s _not_ what I’m upset about, Giles,” said Buffy, who was visibly holding back tears. “We kicked Ms. Calendar out of the club, and Angelus swooped in when we weren’t looking. And we did that because _I_ decided that this entire thing was _her_ fault, because that was easier than admitting it was _my_ fault—”

“Does it truly have to be anyone’s _fault,_ Buffy?” Giles persisted. “If you’re at fault for deciding Jenny unworthy, that puts the rest of us at fault as well. And it puts _Jenny_ at fault for not telling us what she was planning, and me _doubly_ at fault for not figuring her out to be my soulmate—”

“It doesn’t work like that!”

“Oh, so it’s _only_ your fault?’

“No—yes—Giles, just _stop_ it!” Buffy burst out, raising her voice enough that the Scoobies could clearly hear her. “Stop trying to make me feel better like—like that’s something I _deserve_ right now, like—”

“Buffy, your self-flagellation isn’t helping matters,” said Giles, losing his patience. Over on the couch, Jenny had tensed up at Buffy’s raised voice, and was watching their conversation with frightened eyes. “You are _not_ at fault for what happened, all right? I know you feel terribly—”

“I _hated_ Ms. Calendar!”

The room went very, very quiet. “I’m sorry?” said Giles.

Eyes bright and wet, Buffy stared beseechingly up at him. “I never _understood_ her, Giles,” she said. “I liked her because you were dating her, I liked her because _Willow_ liked her, but we never spent any time together and I always felt like she didn’t know how to talk to me. And I _hated_ that you’d said all that stuff to me about how I couldn’t have a normal life, and then you go ahead and start dating Ms. Calendar because she’s _so_ pretty and _so_ nice and the exception to _every_ rule—”

Giles didn’t know what to say. He didn’t know if he _could_ say anything. “Buffy—”

“And then _she_ had the nerve to break up with you like she could _do_ any better, and you were _so sad_ , and I saw how snarky she was about stuff you liked and I thought _you_ could do _so much better—”_ Buffy was sobbing by now, full-on sobbing in a way Giles had never seen her cry before, “a-and I had _no idea_ she was better than _all of us combined!_ She’s kind and brave and smart a-and she wanted to _help_ Angel even though—even after—”

“Buffy.”

Buffy stopped mid-sob, jerking to look at Jenny with a frightened apology in her eyes. “Ms. Calendar, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean—” she began.

Without a word, Jenny stepped forward, tugging Buffy into a quiet, gentle hug.

Heart in his throat, Giles stared. The rest of the Scoobies looked similarly stunned. Whatever they’d been expecting to happen, it certainly wasn’t…Buffy hiding her face in Jenny’s shoulder and beginning to cry anew, or Jenny resting her hand protectively against the back of Buffy’s head and squeezing her eyes tightly shut. “I’m so _sorry!”_ Buffy was sobbing. “I didn’t know you at _all,_ not even a little bit, I shouldn’t have—”

“It’s evil stepmother syndrome,” said Jenny sympathetically. “Happens to the best of us.”

Buffy pulled her head up to blink at Jenny. “Wh-what?”

Jenny considered. Then she said, “When I was in college, the leader of my coven was this lady named Anna. She was in her mid-forties, _really_ sweet, nice to me in all the way my parents weren’t—you get the drill. About a year or two after Anna became really important to me, Anna started dating this lady named Meadowleaf—” She stopped, frowning. “Meadowbrook? Whatever. It was a _really_ weird name and I used that as a reason to resent the hell out of her.”

Giles didn’t entirely see the point of this story, and was opening his mouth to say so when he realized that Buffy was listening to Jenny with _rapt_ attention. He’d never actually seen Buffy _that_ attentive to anything an adult was saying. Bemused, he shut his mouth again, listening as well.

“Meadow-something was…” Jenny trailed off. “Nice enough, I think,” she said. “A little flaky, and definitely one of those hippie-dippy types that I looked down on when I was in my mid-twenties. She gave me lots of herbal remedies and told me that my aura said _wonderful_ things about me, but one of the things I hated the most about her was how _hard_ I felt like she was trying to get me to like her—because she knew how important I was to Anna.” She looked Buffy directly in the eye. “It made me feel a little like she didn’t want to know _me_ at all, you know?” she said. “She just wanted to show Anna she was girlfriend material, even though she and I both knew she wasn’t.”

Buffy looked somewhat stunned.

“Buffy, I don’t only put up with you because you’re important to Rupert, okay?” said Jenny. “I think you’re a smart, witty kid with a good head on your shoulders. What happened to me is not and will never be your fault.”

“Ms. Calendar—” Buffy’s voice trembled.

“You can still hate me if it makes you feel better,” said Jenny helpfully.

Buffy shook her head violently, actually shaking her messy ponytail loose. (Giles stepped up behind her and pocketed the elastic; she’d likely want it later.) “No, I— _no,”_ she said emphatically. “It _doesn’t._ The reason I _do_ feel terrible is because I hated you for _no_ good reason—”

“You thought I wasn’t good enough for Rupert,” said Jenny.

“And that’s _not_ a good reason!” Buffy persisted.

Jenny gave Buffy an amused smile. “I’d say it’s reason enough,” she said. “Look, we both want the best for Rupert, right? Why don’t we make it a team effort to make sure that that’s what he gets?”

Buffy burst into tears again and flung herself into Jenny’s arms. Jenny, still looking a little surprised, hugged Buffy back, giving Giles an awkward grin over the top of her head. So in love that he couldn’t possibly think straight, Giles managed a stunned smile in return.

* * *

“You handled that well.”

“Hmm?”

“With Buffy.” Giles ran a hand through Jenny’s hair; her head was resting on his lap as she drifted in and out of sleep. “I was…quite surprised.”

“Mm,” said Jenny drowsily. Blinking a little, she yawned, then said, “I just—I know what she’s going through. I didn’t want to say anything about it before now because…I don’t know. I thought it would kind of feel like posturing.”

“Oh?”

“I’d be saying stuff she wouldn’t trust me to follow through on,” said Jenny. She hesitated. “Stuff _I_ wouldn’t trust me to follow through on.”

“You don’t think you’re a lovely girlfriend?”

It took Jenny a moment to answer. Carefully, she said, “Rupert, I think I’m a fine _person,_ but none of the relationships I’ve been in have ever lasted long-term. I didn’t want to promise a vulnerable teenage girl with an already unstable life that I’d always be there for her when…” She trailed off.

But Giles knew how that sentence was going to end. “When if our relationship ended,” he said, “your connection to Buffy would end as well.”

“I mean, of course _I_ want to be there for _her,_ but you heard what she said,” said Jenny with a tired laugh. “It took me getting raped and tortured for her to even _consider_ that she wanted me in her life.”

“Jenny, that’s not entirely fair—”

“I know it’s not.” Jenny shifted, resting her cheek against his leg. “I just…” She didn’t say anything for a few more minutes, long enough that Giles honestly thought she’d drifted off to sleep. But then she moved again, and said slowly, “I just don’t know if I can handle being an adult about this stuff if I don’t _have_ to be.”

“You don’t _have_ to do anything,” Giles reminded her. “You _choose_ to.”

“I didn’t _choose_ what happened to me,” said Jenny, a sliver of ice in her voice. She swallowed. “But I can choose to make sure it doesn’t impact Buffy—and I can promise that none of the stuff I’m saying right now will ever reach her.”

“And _are_ you mad at Buffy?”

“Of course not. I think she’s an amazing kid.” Jenny exhaled. “But I’m not going to pretend that she didn’t hate my guts until this stuff with Angelus, and I’m not going to act like she had any right to dislike me as much as she did.”

Giles thought that this was a fair assessment. Better, even, than the quiet turn-the-other-cheek Jenny Calendar who had willingly played the scapegoat for Buffy’s fury and guilt regarding Angelus. “I’m proud of you,” he said softly.

Jenny rolled over to look up at him. There was an almost childlike hope in her eyes. “Really?”

“Endlessly.”

Jenny’s soft smile trembled. “Hearing you say that—” She sniffled. “It makes me feel. So happy. That I’m alive to hear it.”

“Believe me, I can quite sympathize,” said Giles, and tugged her hand up to kiss her fingers.


	4. willow

_There’s nothing good on TV at 12:30. What are you and the kids doing?_

Buffy, Xander, and Willow grinned at each other. Giles, who hadn’t noticed the scrawly, playful handwriting crawling up his right arm, continued to brief them. “With regards to the potential fish monsters—oh, for God’s sake. What are all of you looking at?”

_Keep me briefed on Scooby meetings or I’m going to go all Boston Tea Party on your secret stash._

Giles looked down at his arm, then back up at all of them. “Has she been doing this _the entire time?”_ he said.

“I think she just wants attention,” said Willow wisely. “You know, what with her being all cooped up by herself in the house—”

“I am _well aware,_ Willow,” said Giles, “but her therapist suggested that she practice being alone in a safe and magically secured location, and she can’t just—”

“Ms. Calendar has a therapist that knows about magic?” said Willow, intrigued. “Do those even _exist?”_

Giles gave Willow a funny look. “Of course they do,” he said. “The Council doesn’t recommend them, but there’s a highly accredited underground network of therapists specializing in trauma recovery related to magical and supernatural incidents.”

“Of _course_ the Council doesn’t recommend them,” said Buffy, sticking her tongue out. “Bunch of stuffy, mean, annoying—”

“Should I be insulted?” said Giles mildly.

“Obviously _not,_ Giles, you’re not _half_ as terrible as the guys who just _let_ Angelus go crazy—”

_I love you!!!!!_

A small, adorable smile crept across Giles’s face. Reaching for the pen he kept in his jacket pocket, he rolled up his other sleeve, scribbling something that the Scoobies couldn’t make out before carefully covering it up.

“What did you write??” Buffy demanded with interest.

 _“Fish monsters,_ Buffy,” said Giles pointedly.

“That isn’t even _remotely_ romantic. She said _I love you_ and you said _fish monsters?_ That’s on par with that one time I told my boyfriend I loved him in freshman year and he was like _I have to go to track practice,_ except yours is _weirder.”_

Giles gave all of them an extremely long-suffering look, which was somewhat undercut by the way he was starting to blush a little. More of Ms. Calendar’s writing was crawling up his arm, sweet and bright: _I think daytime TV should be improved for convalescing individuals such as myself. Do you know how many talk shows I’ve watched? And yes, I do know I could be doing work, but I’m still enjoying this whole “paid leave” thing that Snyder’s been giving me ever since you filed that police report—_

“You went to the _police?”_ said Willow, startled.

Giles gave his arm a very severe look. (Buffy and Willow bit back their laughter.) _“That_ is none of your concern,” he said. “Suffice it to say that I wished to make _sure_ Sunnydale was aware that Jenny Calendar did _not,_ in fact, resign—and that under the horrendous circumstances, she fully deserved time to recover _and_ to keep her job. Snyder wasn’t receptive; I went to the school board and pled my case. It didn’t reflect kindly on him.”

“Did he get fired?” said Buffy hopefully. “Or suspended? Or—”

“I would be quite a bit more cheerful if he had,” said Giles ruefully.

_—did you know that penguins are waterproof?_

“She really will not _stop,”_ said Giles, but Willow noticed with a small grin that he hadn’t rolled down his sleeve. “Now, if all of you would focus on the _topic at hand—”_

* * *

Ms. Calendar showed up the next day—not to teach class, just to visit Giles with a big bouquet of flowers and set up shop in his office for most of the day. She still looked a little twitchy in a way that seemed kind of weird on Ms. Calendar, but Giles was also warmer and calmer than usual whenever Ms. Calendar was around, which seemed to balance things out. “Afternoon, Willow,” he said. “What can I help you with?”

“Um, if Ms. Calendar’s here, can I ask her a question about the lesson plan?” asked Willow shyly. “It’s _really_ clear, I just wanted to know if I could adapt part of it—”

“I’m sorry, you’re _still_ teaching my class?” said Ms. Calendar with exasperation. “Rupert, we are _really_ going to have to call the school board.”

“No, Snyder’s paying me now!”

 _“That’s_ illegal,” said Giles with satisfaction.

“That—I want to _help,”_ said Willow, “and I _don’t_ want someone who doesn’t know Ms. Calendar teaching her lesson plan!”

Ms. Calendar and Giles exchanged a look. Then Giles said, “Well, if we can’t get Snyder fired over this latest indiscretion, I may have a solution that does not involve a minor teaching a high school computer science class.”

“I _can_ do it—” said Willow impatiently.

“Willow, whether you _can_ or not really isn’t the point—and we all know you can!” added Ms. Calendar hastily as Willow opened her mouth again. “The point is that you shouldn’t _have_ to be teaching computer science on top of trying to maintain your own grades, and Snyder should know better than to put _any_ high school student in that position. _Whether or not they’re capable of doing it.”_

Willow guessed she _kind_ of understood where they were coming from—but one part of their argument was still giving her unease. “But if I’m not going to teach the computer class, who is?”

“Ah,” said Giles, at which point Ms. Calendar gave him a positively lovesick smile. “Well—” He coughed. “Computer science is an extremely important class, and it provides dedicated students with the opportunity to pursue the subject in college. As Jenny’s lesson plans are thorough enough to be taught by anyone with a basic understanding of computer sciences—”

Willow’s jaw dropped. _“Giles,”_ she said disbelievingly. “You’re not saying—”

Giles went a little pink. _“And,”_ he continued, “as the library can easily be either shut down indefinitely or staffed by a substitute, I find it—entirely reasonable—that I might step in and teach Jenny’s class until she feels ready to return.”

Ms. Calendar seemed too busy staring happily at Giles to say anything about the matter.

“You’re going to teach _computer science,”_ said Willow, amazed. “So that Ms. Calendar can have time off to get better.”

“Well, I love Jenny very much,” said Giles conversationally, grinning a little at Ms. Calendar. “I’m sure any other person would do the same in my position.”

“!!” said Ms. Calendar, and tugged Giles into a hug. Giles laughed softly, hugging her back.

* * *

“They seem…” Willow trailed off, lying back against the pillows on Buffy’s bed. “Happy.”

“Yeah?” Buffy almost smiled.

“Yeah. _Really_ happy. I don’t even think they were that happy together before all the stuff with—” Willow stopped herself. “You know.”

Buffy _actually_ smiled at that, though it only lasted a few seconds. “Whenever I think about them, I can’t help but feeling like the worst person ever,” she said. “I feel like—like I should have _known_ that they were meant to be together, you know?”

“Well, soulmates aren’t _everything,_ right?” Willow pointed out, looking down at the inky-blue flower doodles on her own arm. “Even before Giles and Ms. Calendar knew they were soulmates, they still wanted to be together. I don’t think they love each other more than before now that they know they’re _it_ for each other.” She ran a finger over the carefully sketched-out flower petals. “And I’m dating Oz, and _he’s_ not my soulmate—but I’d choose him over my soulmate _any_ day.”

“You don’t know your soulmate yet,” Buffy pointed out.

“So?” Willow nudged Buffy’s shoulder. “Before all this—if your soulmate showed up in town, would you have left Angel for him?”

After a moment of hesitation, Buffy shook her head.

 _“So,”_ said Willow. “Soulmates don’t mean _everything._ What matters more than that is the fact that Giles and Ms. Calendar get to be happy.”

Buffy smiled again. This time it stuck. “Yeah,” she said softly. Then, “So wait. Is Giles _seriously_ gonna teach computer science?”

(At the thought of the deeply frightened look on Giles’s face when she’d handed him Ms. Calendar’s hefty lesson plan binder, Willow started giggling and couldn’t stop for a good ten minutes.)


End file.
